We all know the proven benefits of a couple of hours gardening. We can reduce the risk of illness, promote healing and boost the spirits. But not only does gardening do you good, the plants you grow can have advantages too.

The use of medicinal plants predates written history. Herbalists from Dioscorides to Hildegard of Bingen extol their virtues. Nowadays more than 7,000 modern medicinal compounds are derived from plants – just visit the Cowbridge Physic Garden in Wales, where a dozen beds display curative plants associated with specific parts of the body; or Chelsea Physic’s Pharmaceutical Garden pinpointing plants like Taxus baccata with anti-cancer properties, Digitalis lanata used to strengthen heartbeat and meadowsweet, the first source of aspirin.

I visited the Abbey Physic Gardens in nearby Faversham, behind high brick walls and dripping plane trees, and found an atmospheric garden devoted to both the healing properties of gardening – the charity offers educational training to those within the community recovering from mental and physical ill health – and the healing properties of plants themselves. Herbs are planted in pretty beds edged with step-over fruit trees, vegetables in deep raised beds and wild flowers with historical remedial properties are grown in tiny meadows and parterres. Old and young come and enjoy this special place, looked after by community gardener James Thorn. This is a magical remnant of the monastic healing gardens that by the 17th century had spread all over Europe.

Some traditional herbal cures, like advice to alleviate baldness by alternately rubbing the head with onions and honey, were obviously dotty, but many are still used to good effect today. When I suffer from minor gardening ailments I reach for a cream made with calendula that soothes; nettles that promote healing and stellaria, the modest starflower that cools, in a wondrous potion for hard-working hands from madeleines-cream.com. It also calms nappy rash (as my grandson will attest), burns and chapped skin.

Rosemary Verey’s daughter, the herbalist Davina Wynne-Jones, came up with this remedy for those with aches and pains after a hard day in the garden: “For a relaxing bath, pop some camomile, lime flowers, lavender and hops in a muslin bag or sock and tie it under your bath tap. To wake you up, you could try a bay, rosemary, mint sage and basil leaf soak. If you cut yourself in the garden, chew up some yarrow (Achillea millefolium) to a pulp, then apply the paste to the cut.”

Davina suggests lawn daisy flowers to prevent bruising, chewed plantain leaves for wasp stings and a cabbage leaf poultice for bramble and rose scratches. She also recommends elderflower tea for colds, sinus and catarrh; a meadowsweet tincture for those with joint pain; a thyme infusion for ear, nose and throat infections, and a sage leaf gargle for sore throats. She holds courses in her workshop and herb garden behind Barnsley House (next on November 6 and 13) and provides all you need to make your own remedies from her treasury of a website: herbsforhealing.net.